Millennium Tower Residences

It's called pre-foreclosure marketing.... are there any penthouses?

FLMAO... $750psft.. .no way.. shut up.. no way... upper east end is like trading at $625psft.... either this is a typo or someone bought a little toooooooo sooooooonn on the UES.... FLMAO.. .oh that goes double for LICC.... FLMAO.

Can someone tell me... MT? is that in nyc?

Is this the same as the Park Milennium? We looked at an apartment there recently, which I believe has since sold. It was listed as a penthouse, but didn't really seem like one.

The number of units for sale/rent is not high -- for a building this size, in this market, and compared to other comp buildings. Check ACRIS for liens on common charges (=pre-foreclosure) to see if it's really a building in distress.

As for the range of $psf, there have been some record-setting low-priced sales (see blog entries http://www.downtownyblog.com/search/label/30%20West%20St) in this building and the other sellers are refusing to accept the New Reality of pricing in this building. BTW, ignore the downtownyblog.com part about the common charges -- they're wrong. See other thread about this building at http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/13915-30-west-common-charges

I'm researching this building too for possible purchase.

Yes of course there are penthouses. Three floors' worth even!

w67th -- Come down to BPC sometime, the view's fine.

Nicko -- Also there is a school rising behind the building which will block views up to ~14th Floor (not sure exactly which floor) so that might account for some seriously low asking prices on that side of the building, e.g. #5G which is a great apartment but will soon be looking directly into a schoolroom.

kaetzli 42 units for sale or rent in a 235 unit building is very high. Thats about 9 percent of the building on the market. I never understood why people like BPC but I guess if yu work right there

samadams -- what's not to like about BPC?? Too tranquil? Too many annoying parks? Ok, lots of dogs/tourists/kids, but otherwise it's pretty zen.

Anyway, 42 units are *not* for Sale or Rent. Numerous units are available for sale and rent both. You can't just add up the numbers atop the Streeteasy columns. Example #32D. It's for Sale (asking price ($3.5m) and for Rent (for $17k/mo). Quick detective work reveals this is precisely the same apartment making two appearances. Others too.

#32f

w67, how could not know where the MT is? It's the same developer as your beloved GM, 150 Columbus, 111 w67th, etc.. Anyway, if you can't wait for GM to come down to your price range, you can always look into the MT or BPC Ritz - they're all basically the same..

kaetz while that is true its still wuld put it a double the avg. in manhattan.

Samadams what numbers are you using? 42/235 or 21/235?

sigh. jsmith, w67th knows where MT is. sarcasm, irony, pointed reference to price point.

kaetzli, i agree with your numbers, but think that units being both for sale and rent indicate weakness in and of itself. in large new developments it is often difficult to match up the units, brokers often fudge the square footage by a bit or list the rental with another broker at the firm. in new developments it is also illustrative to look at how many units have gone onto the market and then been removed. very tough in new developments because the sponsor often has units long after you expect it. i've been amazed recently at the sponsor sales i'm seeing in buildings that i thought were long sold out.

kaetz i did my math wrong this buildings vacancy is way over 9 percent even with some double listings. must mean its priced way too high

"sigh. jsmith, w67th knows where MT is. sarcasm, irony, pointed reference to price point."

sigh. ummm AR, jsmith knows w67 knows where MT is... sarcasm, irony, pointed reference to suggest moving down there if he can't afford GM.

nice cover. right. and how do you know what he can and can't afford? i think he's always said he opted not to afford. you can doubt that if you wish, but you certainly have zero proof. so your sarcasm was rather weak, suspect if you will.

Smithers, my bank looked at the financings on the millennium partners on all the projects. Though it smart that Morgan Stanley bought half in on the 67th with it's own separate elevators. Dorm rooms for their bankers. Should tell you somethig when they unloaded, no?

Smithers you have no idea how much I can afford versus what I wish to spend. Does your wife walk around with a $80k Tiffany ring? My f'n car payments are $2600/ month and my nannies are being sent to college on watching my kids. Lmao.

w67th, you really should cut back a bit. such excess.

smithers, excellent.

fairly certain the price difference is the view... high floor west, high$$... low floor west view, low$$$. the lower floors did not have a water view (i don't think) due to the apt building across the street, but now the school is right there!! i know people that live there and love the building if that helps

BTW: Potential buyers beware as the developer's 50% subsidy on the Common Charges will expire after the 5th year from completion(which should be in the next 24months or less)

i think this building and the rest of bpc is doomed. i wouldn't even pay 750 psf. High common charges/taxes, oversupply (ie visionaire), and the bad location. what would you pay? i think 700 psf sounds about right. wadda u think?

jshome given the way that authority taxes people who live in BPC I would never buy there.

nvouy Loss of sponsor subsidy will result in a 10% increase in common charges over the next three years. It's in the offering plan and EVERYTHING.

aboutready Is it possible to determine whether a sale is a sponsor sale, when a building is supposedly (like MT) sold out? Also, I'm intrigued why a unit for sale and rent simultaneously is an inherent weakness.

samadams The tax rate for BPC is the same as the rest of NYC's.

As much as I don't agree with a lot of samadam's recent posts (I guess he is a recent joiner - I don't recall anything from him older than a few weeks so I guess I disagree with all his post up till now) I do agree that the way the bpca sees all the buildings as cash cows and thus tax disproportionately high (which has always kept $psf prices in bpc lower than other prime areas) would prevent me from ever buying there despite my view that it is a wonderful place to raise a family.

I don't have time to go into detail about how Kavanagh and the original founder of the bpca run it and put their own spin on the affordable housing aspect of it while not caring that current residents who are not what they originally envisaged (single rich wall streeters) will struggle to pay ever increasing land rent, fees, and pliot, but, suffice it to say, as long as current management is in charge then current and future residents are doomed. Even Shelly Silver, the protector of the downtrodden and poor, has sided with the bpc residents.

BTW, kaetli is correct in that MT sold out - it was done a lot earlier than the river house and vsionaire - so I doubt that there are any sponsor sales today and I thnk re2009 is right about height and views coupled with the other poster who mentioned the school beong built.

divvie What do you mean the BPCA taxes the buildings disproportionately high? My understanding is that the BPCA has no authority to set tax rates or influence assessments. PILOT is simply what would otherwise be owed in taxes to the city if BPCA, as the landowner, didn't do the collecting.

I have a freind who lives in this building and the issue is their
water supply they have this green oily look and feel. They
are involed in a lawsuit with management. They have bottled
water in all bathrooms and kitchen. Everyone in the building knows
this including all the doormen and concierge but will never discuss
it as per management. Let me know if you get to speak to anyone
in the building. Like I said they all know about this issue. Best of luck!

kaetzli, I'm sorry but I am lumping all three types of payments made (pilot, park maintenance fees, adn ground rent) under a "tax" label. The ground rent and fees are what the bpca control. The bpca are indeed the authority that has the power to increase ground rents and it is these large increases (and
not pilot) that many residents and Silver are trying to mitigate.

I incorrectly spelled Jim Cavanaugh's name. The thing that concerns me about him is that his only goal, when it comes to setting ground rent increases, is to maximize income. For a good few years the bpcs has been running a surplus of over $100M per year that was supposed to have gone towards financing low income housing elsewhere but Guiliani appropriated those funds into the city's general pool to balance the city budget. It was only recently that Bloomberg reversed that decision/flow of funds so that the profits could be used for their original purpose.

All well and good, and I am all for building more affordable housing, but the impression I get from Cavanaugh, and Silver seems to echo this concern, is that there is a very real danger of driving people out of bpc due to very high ground rent increases. There has to be a middle ground but it seems that the bcpa are far from it. I know many people of all incomes have already been driven out of nyc but there has to be a way to prevent such high increases to both bpc residents and build affordable housing and with the amount of money bpca generates then this is probably the best funded authority to do both.

jahanh......I live in the building and I don't have any water problems.

divvie, i'm not doubting you on the sales history. SE often has some glitches with numbers. i was basing my supposition on the fact that the building had 234 units (and i don't see combos, although that's not saying they didn't happen), and SE shows 226 recorded sales with a number of resales, and the MT web page shows rentals available.

"The bpca are indeed the authority that has the power to increase ground rents"

divvie Are you referring to BPCA's authority to negotiate with developers in setting ground rent increases? The ground lease between building and BPCA (which contains the schedule of rent increases) is inviolable, I should think. In other words, Cavanaugh is not rubbing his hands together in carnivorous anticipation of raising a building's ground rent. He can't.

To recast "the BPC problem" as I see it, a building's contractually obligated rent increases are unmitigated by external factors. ('In 20 years ground rent shall increase by a billion dollars without regards to anything'). At least, that's the case for my building. And now that these increases are coming due for some of the early BPC buildings, the increases indeed seem absurdly high, and we (residents) are rooting for BPCA to renegotiate the ground leases with these buildings to a more civilized (and, as you point out, more socio-economically sensitive) amount of money. Yes? Or?

Anyway, thanks for your insights. Really illuminating.

Sorry yes, you are correct. I should have said the bpca has the power to reduce or restructure payment terms for ground rents.

Upon re-reading some reports on the issue I now realize was Urstadt (vice chairperson) I was thinking of. He is the one who keeps coming up with dogmatic, emotive arguments ("robbing low income peter to pay high income paul" for example) while pulling numbers from thin air that were then refuted by the Cavanaugh (president).

Some of the problem lies in the stupidity of the purchasers and/or lack of understanding by their attorneys as to what they were getting themselves into. In a similar manner to the effect that expiring tax abatements have, both with original sales and eventual resales when they expire, the "I can't believe this is happening" is a bit hollow to me when if all you did was read the offering plan and pull out a simple hand calculator, just about anyone could have figured out what was going to happen. but the developers counted on the stupidity of the buyers, and negotiated grounds leases which were low at the start, but with big increases.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of all that is going on all over the place: people took out loans with low initial payments and negative amortization (I'm going well beyond BPC, now), people bought places with low monthly fees because the RE Taxes were zero or close to it, people bought condos on leased land with low starting rents..............

And now, when what happens is EXACTLY what was known was going to happen, happens... everyone is OMFG!!! How did THAT happen? but it didn't HAVE to happen: people could have paid more initially for their BPC residences in places like the Liberty places, where the Milsteins negotiated a very different rent structure (look at the monthly charges there), but they voted for "pay me later"..... it's later and they don't want it to be.

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/19/nyregion/6-builders-chosen-for-housing-at-battery-park-city.html

To set you all straight: 1) 5G will likely be sold for (or close to) its original purchse price 3 years ago despite significant dislocation in the market and construction in front of its building, 2) 10G (also impeded view) sold for less than 7% of its original purchase price (3 years ago) despite the fall off in the market and construction, 3) the lower floors were ALWAYS priced for impeded view. what they werent priced for was the fact that a new k-8 (green) school was going up on the same property, 4) all the F lines facing west still retain partial water views (those that cleared the Jewish Musueum), and have great views of battery park and the east river, 5) service in the building is impeccable, 6) no problems with the water quality that i know of, 7) the PILOT charges are overstated due to an annual reimbursement from the City, which comes in the fall, 8) sales momentum has significantly picked up in the building, 9) one of the sales at a distressed price was an estate sale, 10) rental moves very quickly, and 11) the entire city is in the midst of a real estate recession. For those of you who said you wouldn't move to BPC, you probably would have said the same thing 10 years ago. Big mistake - area showed massive real estate appreciation. Good luck. Get the facts straight before posting gibberish.

DIPIESA.....I agree with you.

The building is great and BPC is a great place to live, it's the suburbs in the city!

One recent sale was an F line.....$3,400,000 cash deal!

To all posters that say BPC is terrible... you are correct and so astute
Not sure which is more horrible, the parks, the water view, walking over to the marina and looking at the boats and the amazingly calm vibe. Or maybe (and this is just the worst) the landscaping and all the flower gardens. Not to mention the torture of walking down little west and the view opening up to the water and the statue of liberty. And have the major subway lines right at your doorstep is something no one should have to put up with!!!! really- it's the worst

Don't forget the sunsets. The range of colors hurts my eyes. And I've always found the aroma of newly mown grass in Wagner Park abhorrent, especially when it's combined with the stench of a picnic and pesky butterfles. Gross! But bubbles, you only alluded to the worst of the worst: those TREES. It's like they're taking over the neighborhood with all their shade, and their leaves, and their shelter for birds ... Oh, my wife just weighed in, and she agrees with you about the marinas, especially North Cove. The cafes and restaurants that line the water in the summer are her bete noir. She finds the babble of contented diners and clinking wine glasses annoying. Especially when it's warm and breezy and she can't concentrate on ignoring the lousy yachts as she bicycles by. Her only escape is stopping into Whole Foods for some freshly prepared sushi. Personally, I find solace from this hellhole by catching a film at the movie theater after a manly shopping spree in the Financial Center mall. We should just surrender to the truth, illuminated here on the SE boards, that BPC is horrible and move across West Street to lovelier climes.

kaetzli- i think i must have blocked the sunsets from my mind because it is too horrific!! the mind blocks the truly terrible things and pain so thank you for pointing out how horrible it is to see the giant orange sun set and the beautiful swilrly colors!
And it is ssssoooo much colder here in the winter, when i lived in mid-town i was able to wear a bathing suit in jan, down here it's a winter coat. A winter coat in January in NY!!! Who ever heard of such a thing!!!!!!!!?????
No wonder that cheap motel, the ritz, is BPC. And the neighbors- i guess that is why everyone snarls at each other. Really, who could blame them, living in such hellish conditions???

Oh, that fleabag motel! "Ritz" -- Ha! Like THAT'S a Ritz-Carlton! I must have blocked that out -- luckily the mind helps us forget, right? And now that I think of it, that time we had drinks at the outdoor "Ritz" rooftop bar watching the horrible sunset over the harbor was a real low point in my life.

And the cold in winter: Great point. The wind that comes off the Hudson as we stroll along is truly biting. Especially on New Year's Eve when we stand on the Esplanade for a front-row view of the Statue of Liberty fireworks. Hate that!

What WAS Hollywood thinking when that Jennifer Aniston movie was being filmed in BPC over the summer? Was the location scout on something? Whatever he was taking, I need some as well, just to get through the day living here.

Allow me to jump in on the horror as I just come in from this horrible day. Today is one on those terrible days in BPC, sunny, nice temp and people loving life (what could they be thinking). I overheard a conversation the other day about someone telling a woman her dog is always chasing rats new her apt in LES.... now thst is heaven!!

I actually like this building. The trio of newer buildings in South Battery Park (The Ritz-Carlton, Millennium Tower, and Visionaire) are our favorites across the neighborhood. We do buyer searches all the time between Battery Park, Tribeca, and the Financial district and we always come back to these three buildings.

Derek Lee
Managing Partner
L.G. Fairmont Group
http://www.lgfairmont.com

What brings them back? $$$Charges?

Millennium Tower has the best ground rent.

For those who live here, how do you like it? or maybe you hate it? what are the expected increases in taxes/maintenance annually?

how long is the walk to whole foods and tribeca?